Arghhh

There is enough paper work round our place to papermache a culvert over the ditch at the end of the driveway. That would be illegal of course.

We are well informed of the legalities of the matter as all letters advise us that there will be SERIOUS consequences to doing any earthworks ourselves on THEIR roadside. Sort of a "we are watching you" threat. They (they being the Council and Inroads) haven't figured yet that we haven't touched it - and have no intention of it. It's their muck up, why should we fix it. Besides why destroy evidence.

It's reasonably obvious to me reading between the lines from the snide little comments and sarcasm that Inroads and the Transportion Manager at the Council are a bit of a "boys club" and are having wee discussions about us and our obvious stupidity. They don't want to resolve the problem, they don't give a stuff if we are happy or if we have been treated fairly, they just want us to go away without the need to resort to any sort of back down.

I've been told in some reasonably patronising tones that I have no right to be wasting ratepayers money a couple of times. ("You know it would be inappropriate to use roading funds to fix your individual problems") Well golly gee and heck - that's right, I am a ratepayer, so that's my money and I can't think of a single thing I get for my rates (even joining the library costs $50 a year - so much for allowing the poor access to books) apart from a ditch at the end of the driveway. Oh and some voting papers cos the Mayor died (I voted for the guy that said he was commited to improving the roads BTW).

We had requested a meeting on the roadside. Letter from the Council this morning says they have had a look at the ditch and have no problem with it. Though some of the comments they have made make me wonder if they looked at our piece of ditch or one somewhere else. I asked via email why we hadn't been invited to discuss it at that time as I would have been happy to arrange to be there and was told it was self explanatory and my input wasn't required - but he doesn't actually understand which parts I am referring to. The request for a meeting is now being processed... you know "I'll have to get back to you on that". How hard is consulting the diary and saying "I can see you at (whatever appropriate date and time) will that suit?" This isn't a journey into the wilds of Africa for goodness sake - the round trip and a fairly wideranging discussion will take no more than an hour. Mind you they can't return phone calls either so maybe they all have speech impediments or deepseated fear of phone conversations.

Enough time has been wasted on this by Council and Contractors to just fix the stupid thing. I'm bored with it now so we're going to the next step - the Ombudsman has the complaint, the letter will be posted to Rodney Hide tonight and Councillors will all have letters by early next week.